Sofia Vergara Tapped to Play “Black Widow” Griselda Blanco in Upcoming Netflix Series

Sofia Vergara as Griselda Blanco represents another instance of an actor looking nothing like the real person they portray.

Television

Sofia Vergara of Modern Family fame will portray Griselda Blanco, one of the most notorious cocaine traffickers of the 1980s, in a limited Netflix series about Blanco’s life.

“Griselda Blanco was a larger-than-life character whose ruthless but ingenious tactics allowed her to rule a billion-dollar empire years before many of the most notorious male kingpins we know so much about,” Vergara, 49, said in a statement.

Titled Griselda, the series will document the Colombian drug lord’s leadership of one of the most lucrative cartels in history. Blanco earned the nickname “Black Widow” by having all three of her husbands killed.

The six-episode series will be helmed by Ingrid Escajeda (Empire) as showrunner, writer, and executive producer. Eric Newman, Doug Miro, Andres Baiz, and Carlo Bernard – the team who created the seemingly inspirational Narcos — are her collaborators.

“We are thrilled to have found the perfect partners in Eric, Andres and Netflix to help us bring this story of her life to the screen,” said Vergara, who will also be an executive producer on the project along with Luis Balaguer of Latin World Entertainment.

This will be the second time that Blanco’s story has been attempted. In 2017, Catherine Zeta-Jones portrayed her in the terrible Cocaine Godmother for Lifetime. Jennifer Lopez is allegedly working on her own version of the unique story under the title The Godmother. Very original.

Griselda Blanco was killed at age 69 in 2012 by unidentified motorcyclists in Medellin, Colombia, so don’t be surprised by the conclusion of the series when it does arrive on Netflix.